Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc ranked first in terms of artificial intelligence patent applications and authorizations across the nation, as the company remains steadfast in technological innovation to nurture new quality productive forces.

Baidu has filed 19,308 AI-related patent applications by the end of last year, and it has been granted 9,260 patents, topping the list among domestic tech companies for six consecutive years, according to a report from China Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team and the Electronic Intellectual Property Center under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The company has taken the lead in AI-powered large language models patents. It has applied for 869 patents related to LLMs, and has been granted 317 such patents.

Baidu also secured the top spot across the globe in patent applications related to deep learning. The Beijing-based tech heavyweight has invested heavily in AI-related research and development. Baidu's expenditure on R&D of core business accounted for 21.67 percent of its revenue in 2023.

Its LLM and ChatGPT-like chatbot Ernie Bot has garnered more than 200 million users since its debut in March 2023, while the application programming interface (API) is being used 200 million times every day.

fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn